


both the bitter and the sweet

by theMightyPen



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, No spookiness, Pre-Canon, THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUUUUUCH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27268381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/pseuds/theMightyPen
Summary: One of the things he likes best about Bly is that it’s never quiet there. It’s...lived in.The other things are, of course, the people.(Or, Owen, on Flora, before Bly Manor reveals its secrets.)
Relationships: Flora Wingrave & Owen Sharma, Hannah Grose/Owen Sharma, mentions of
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	both the bitter and the sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/gifts).



> Prompted by my dear Niamh with:  
> Owen & Flora, “Children shouldn’t play with guns.” “Who said I was playing?”

* * *

One of the things he likes best about Bly is that it’s never quiet there. It’s...lived in. 

Jamie appears, every now and then, smudged with dirt and sun-kissed, always ready with a “Alright, Owen?” no matter how long or how little she’s been working. Hannah’s presence warms him to the backbone--for reasons he can’t look at too closely, because he _knows_ she isn’t either, not yet anyways--and Becca is sweeter than any pastry he’s ever cooked up in Bly’s fantastic kitchen. Or, at least she is when Peter’s not around. _Bastard._

Miles and Flora are at their best when they’re skittering about the halls, carrying on some game or another. They’re just children, then, without the weight of their dead parents or their absent uncle hanging around their necks. Miles, Owen likes, but Flora...Flora’s something else. 

Owen, admittedly, had been something of a dreamy kid, too fond of puns and fairy tales to do well with the sports fanatics at school, but not quite ambitious enough to be in with the scholars, either. Owen likes comfort, likes comfortable company, likes good food--things that people with harder edges deem pleasant enough, but not necessities. 

Flora’s a bit like that too, with her nightly story times and carefully arranged dollhouse...so yeah. Owen’s fond of her. Indulgent, even, but Christ, who _wouldn’t_ indulge an orphaned seven year old kid with a sweet tooth and a soft heart?

It’s that fondness that has him volunteering to go looking for her--Hannah’s got Miles out on the lawn, hoisting a kite into the stiff fall breeze with happy shouts, Jamie refuses childcare on principal, and Becca--

Peter’s with Becca, so Becca’s got precious little attention to spare, even if she wanted to. 

“Where was she last, Miles?” He calls over the wind, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets. He’ll have to leave earlier today, to be with Mum before it gets dark. She called him by his uncle’s name last night, again, and he knows it’s getting worse, not better. 

“Playing with the soldier!” Is Miles’s response, and it makes Owen frown. They both say things like that, every now and again, that are simply…odd. But then, it’s an old house and there’s no shortage of toys for both kids to play with. And Flora’s known for her dolls--perhaps this is a new one?

There’s no doll in Flora’s hand when he finds her, but rather a crude approximation of...a rifle?

“You know,” he says, stifling a grin when Flora whirls around guiltily, clearly not expecting him, “children shouldn’t play with guns.”

Flora’s guilt is gone in seconds, replaced with a grin that Owen would be tempted to call _shit-eating_ on any one else. “Who says I’m playing?”

“Oh? And you’re an expert on rifles now, Miss Wingrave?”

“ _Admiral_ Wingrave,” she informs him with a sniff. “And yes, I rather am!” 

“Fascinating,” Owen says, sinking down onto the rug beside her. “Why the sudden promotion, Admiral?”

“I’m finding another way to keep the house safe,” Flora says, conspiratorially. Her playfulness drains away, though, as she tightens her grip on her floppy toy gun, “I have to find another way to keep us safe.”

Owen frowns, drawing an arm around her shoulders. “Safe from what, sweetheart?” 

Flora blinks up at him, lost, before the smile is back from before. “Don’t worry, Owen. I’ll figure it out!”

“Flora--”

But then she’s up, abandoning her pretend gun in favor of one of his hands. “Can we have Baked Alabama tonight for dessert?”  
  
Owen snorts. “It’s Baked _Alaska_ , Admiral Wingrave. I would have thought a Navy man like yourself would have known that.”

“Baked _Alaska_ , then. Can we, please? It’s ever so splendid--”

And ever so cumbersome to make. But Flora smiles at him, swinging his hand back and forth between them, and Owen knows he’s going to make it. Maybe it’ll take her mind of whatever she thinks she has to protect the rest of the house from. Their own sadness, maybe, and that makes him swing her up over his shoulder on the walk down to the kitchen, smiling at her peals of laughter. 

“Honestly, Owen,” Jamie grumbles as what was _once_ Baked Alaska ends up all over Miles’s jumper, Flora’s dress, Becca’s hair, Jamie’s overalls, and Hannah’s own sensible shoes, “must you make food that can be so easily used as projectiles?”

“I was assigned a duty by the Admiral to help win the Great Kitchen War of 1988,” he answers with a wink in Flora’s direction. “And besides, you lot are just lucky it’s just sugar in here, not salt and pepper.” 

“Why--”

“Oh, Heavens, don’t ask him--”

“Because then we’d all be _seasoned veterans_ \--”

The collective groan of “Owennnn” is worth the ruin of his second best trousers. Flora’s smile and the brush of Hannah’s hand along his arm, though, are worth all the trousers in the world. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Hi yeah I am still inconsolable over the Haunting of Bly Manor, "it's me, it's you, it's us" lives rent free in my brain now.


End file.
